


Five minutes, he told God, and I'll be fine.

by CriticalDoodle



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Gen, Late Night Scramble to write, Other, Spoilers up to Episode 142
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-01
Updated: 2019-07-01
Packaged: 2020-05-31 14:17:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19427674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CriticalDoodle/pseuds/CriticalDoodle
Summary: A character evalution of Jonathan Sims and the meaning of the five-minute rule.[Spoilers up to episode 142]





	Five minutes, he told God, and I'll be fine.

The first time Jon learns of the five-minute rule is when he’s six years old.

Outside, sitting cross-legged over wet grass and wetter dirt, picking at uncomfortable fabric he’d been dressed in. There was an argument playing over and over again at the back of his mind, restarting with every twist and pull of the suit. A disagreement of sorts. Disagreement — that was a new word to learn. It’s definition lived vividly in memory. Him, sitting behind closed doors with an ear pressed against wood, listening. Hearing, as the same adults who had approached him with arms outstretched and smiles plastered across identical faces, were caught in a screaming match against his grandmother. It was a rare thing to hear her voice raised. Even rarer for it to be directed towards strangers. The words were difficult to make out, but he knew what screaming sounded like. He knew the way the loudness and sharpness of each voice prickled at his consciousness. How it made him more aware of the way he struggled to contain his shaking, his thoughts, his emotions. He knew screaming and he knew he did not like it. By the time his grandmother had forced open the hospital door, red with fury, he had managed to scoot further into the hall with ears covered and knees brought to his chest. Ignoring, crying, wondering.

That was then.

Now, he sits outside.

Alone.

A string comes undone as testament to his fidgeting. The suit his grandmother had dressed him up in was another mistake, really. He had fought against it, just the smallest bit, demanding that he’d dress himself because he was six and all six year olds could button up and look nice. Arms crossed, eyes directed towards the floor, he hadn’t expected for his grandmother to laugh. A laugh that seemed to rasp at the back of her throat. It was wrong. Too wet when it normally barked, and his eyes drifted further away. His thoughts shifted and he dropped the argument entirely as she continued to slide the buttons through the gaps in fabric with trembling hands. By the time each button had found its pair, he felt her hand cup the back of his neck. Wrinkled skin brushing against his own, his limbs stiffening, eyes squeezed shut. He didn’t breathe as she pressed her forehead to his own.

“Six year olds, Jonathan.” She had whispered as if it were the biggest secret between them. “Six year olds shouldn’t have to dress themselves at funerals.”

That was a new word too.

Funerals.

Funeral, if alone.

Like all new words, Jon’s attention peaked. He tested the way the letters fell on the tip of his tongue, allowed them to roll around in his mouth, before he asked the age old question.

“What’s a funeral?”

Jon is six years old and parentless as he stands in front of a newly dug grave.

The dirt below his shoes feels off. Disturbed and slick with morning dew, brimming with ants, and the arm coiled around his shoulder has to yank him away from messing with it further, The suit fabric beneath the grip rubs his skin raw as tears burn in his eyes, but they don’t fall. There are eyes, hundreds of them, all observing the way he fidgets under the glare of morning light. It feels wrong, off, all of it, every rotten second spent at this funeral. His gaze wanders up the arm that tightens around his own. His grandmother stands beside him. Unlike him, she does not allow herself to bend and break under the weight of the stares. She stands strong and faces towards the grave without a hint of an expression. That too, he thinks, is wrong.

Jon blinks and there is a stranger in his grandmother’s place.

_His_ grandmother’s forehead is riddled with wrinkles, her eyes tight and narrow, and her lips crossed in a permanent scowl toward anyone who breathes. The stranger is nothing but unfocused eyes looking ahead to an unseen horizon. When the strangers takes a minute to look down at him, Jon tries to take a step back. The grip tightens.

“Jonathan.” The stranger sighs with the same thin voice. The smell of smoke fills the air around them and with it, he realizes the silence that’s fallen around him. The steadiness of sunlight rising above and beaming down upon them. He whines at the slight discomfort of his arm going numb. “Jonathan.”

“Yes?”

“I need you to, okay, just.” The stranger begins and ends. Takes a moment to stand taller, a moment to look way up at the sky above them, a moment to allow the emotions to bleed back into her face, and a moment for his grandmother to look back down at him with tired eyes. “Oh lord. Okay, I want you to listen closely to me. Do you understand that, Jonathan? I have one rule for today that must be followed. No ifs, ands, or buts. Do you understand me?”

“One rule?”

“Just the one.” The grip lightens on his arm, hesitantly, before returning full force. “Today is going to be a sad day. Sometimes, on our saddest days, we cry. We scream, we kick, we do things that should never be done in public. My one rule for today is that whenever you feel the urge to do _any_ of that, you’ll tug on my hand. I want you to squeeze my hand as hard as you need to and then, I will take you somewhere more private. From there, young man, I will give you five whole minutes.”

“Okay.” He nods, more of a habit than anything else. The tears in his eyes burn as his asks, “Five minutes to do what?”

“To kick, scream, cry.” She lists out and the grip on his arm is gone. Replaced by a wrinkled hand that grabs at his own. “Whichever feels necessary.”

He frowns. His free hand bounces on his pant leg, tugs further at the loose fabric, and he allows himself to look at the dirt clumped around the wooden box they were facing — a casket, he thinks. It’s another new word though he doesn’t like the way it drops out of his mouth. It’s bitter and lonely and all he can bring himself to think about is whether it’s cold in there. Whether the sunlight that touches his shoulders can move through the thick wooden planks and the flowers. He wonders, quietly, if his mother is surrounded by the same warmth bearing down on him. If she wishes that he were there beside her, away from the prying eyes, and instead engulfed in one of her hugs. His mom gave the biggest hugs, he remembers, and his vision blurs as the warmth of her seeps into the ground and away from him.

There are hundreds of eyes, observing.

“Whichever feels necessary,” Jon whispers to himself. “Okay.”

.

It takes him less than two minutes to tug on her hand.

.

It’s when the strangers march forward and swam the child without parents - _arms reaching, a hundred eyes all tearful and red and wide, shoulders shaking, mouths moving without sound_ — it’s then when he squeezes her hand as hard as he possibly can. His chest is rising and falling rapidly. His eyes are on fire. It’s getting hard to breathe and the fabric covering his skin is constricting, suffocating, and he wants out. He doesn’t pay attention to the apology his grandmother hums out to the unfamiliar faces. He ignores how she shoves him closer to her legs and barks out a laugh towards a stranger’s joke. He’s pulled through the crowd of eyes, picked apart by their looks, and by the time he is thrown into one of the church’s backrooms does he notice the pain in his chest.

“Five minutes.” His grandmother coos. Says the words as softly as a woman who has lost everything she ever loved except for the reminder of why can say. “That’s all you get.”

He _wails_.

Not once does she stop him. Not once does she offer any form of comfort. There is no warmth in the way his grandmother watches him as he screams in the lonely church corridor. His hands beat against his chest, his fingers claw at his hair, and when she speaks again there is no pity.

“That is enough, Jonathan. Enough of that.”

The five minutes are up.

And without hesitation, he’s thrown to the wolves.

.

The five-minute rule becomes the law in their household.

There are many laws, Jon finds, in the house that’s too big for two people but of the ones he hears, that is the law he follows by heart. Most times the five minutes are up long before he feels better. There’s a stiffness in his chest each time he wipes away his tears vigorously, glaring at the watch or the clock that has deemed enough, and he forces down the aching with nails dug into his palms. Sometimes, there’s blood.

When he begins school, the law becomes sacred.

School is where bullies mock how he stares — _broken glasses, a ruler slapped against his wrists, tears and snot smeared across his face_ — how he talks — _too proper for his age, little Einstein here thinks he’s clever, paper cuts and bruises_ — or even how he walks — _always on tiptoes, like a fairy he is, toes broken and rubbed raw, bleeding_ — and he decides shortly that five minutes is all it takes to learn how to breathe again.

Jon learns how to watch the clock and count the seconds.

He learns, most importantly, how to make every second count.

.

Even then, sometimes it takes more than five minutes.

.

It’s the anniversary of his mother’s death and his grandmother is out late again.

She’s working. Which, if to base upon any of the rumors spread by her close-knit circle of friends, is completely and utterly unnecessary. Life insurance is another new word to learn though he finds it’s better not to ask. Jon’s alone, seven years old merging on eight in a house that’s too big for him to call home, as he sneaks into the living room. The sun is settling, light casted in an old glimmer through stained glass. He’s on his knees in front of the old book shelf when he pulls out the picture book. It’s thick, covered in yarn and fabric which he traces over lightly, and has been the subject of his grandmother’s undivided attention for the last six weeks. He’s seen her sneak looks into it; always at night time and never when he’s near. The picture book in his hands is a secret, he knows this, and his curiosity has always been an issue to keep under wraps.

It is a strange picture book, though.

It weighs heavy in his hands when brought to the coffee table nearest to the window. It falls with a loud thud against the old wood and he hesitates before slipping a finger along the ridges of it’s spine. The texture is odd, inviting almost, and it forces him to open the book and pull the pages closer to peer in. The first page is full of scribbled and looping letters that form sentences he can hardly read through. That doesn’t discourage him. The next page is full of the same writing but also, there are pictures. A handful of pictures that are small and curved at the edges, painted black and white with mixes of gray. Jon smiles, reflexively, as he taps one of them. There’s a baby in these pictures. One that grows with every flip of the page. A baby boy to a toddler to a child to a teenager, all the way until the baby is a man. The man is drawn tall and thin, wearing a coat that Jon could’ve sworn he’d seen stuffed away in the attic, and he’s drawn with the largest smile. It’s a smile that he mimics shakily, warmth in his chest, before he notices that some of the pictures contain someone else. A woman, who as Jon flips through the pages again, appears more and more. She’s drawn with the same kind eyes and smile as the man. She proceeds to fill the pictures with hands thrown over the man’s shoulders, kisses on his cheek, or caught in a hug. Sometimes, the two are staring at him with stuck-out tongues. Drawn as they’re caught mid-laugh. Other times, he feels like a distant memory as the two just look at one another.

There are two pictures in particular that Jon stops at. A picture of hands intertwined, rings gleaming. Another of the man cupping the woman’s face, leaning in for a kiss with his eyes closed, while the woman is caught laughing with a slice of cake in her hands a second from making contact with his face. Jon pauses, stops flipping the pages, and stares. The two pictures are enough for him to wonder who these people are. The two pictures are enough for him to ignore the creaking of the kitchen door opening and closing. Enough for him to forget why he had snuck around in the first place.

“Jonathan Sims, what the hell are you looking at?”

He flinches. Forces his breathing to slow as the smell of his grandmother’s cigarettes fill the empty air. His eyes catch the window of one of the cabinets and he sees her — outfit wrinkled, cheeks flush with anger, and mouth pursed in a straight line. There’s a furious edge to her when he realizes that the sun has long gone down outside and the picture book is still in his hands. 

“I was,” He considers lying. Then considers the stinging of a wooden ruler against his wrists and crumbles. “I was looking through your picture book.”

“You were looking through my _what_?”

The surprise overrules the anger, slightly. His breathing spikes as she approaches, slow in step but never in mind. The lights flick on above them and his grip tightens on the picture book. He doesn’t look at her, keeps his eyes on the cabinet window, and watches as her face suddenly drops.

“Oh, Jonathan.” She breathes out.

“You kept looking at it, earlier!” He says quickly, trying to ignore the way his name is more pushed out than spoken. “I just wanted to know. About what you were looking at. Why it was a secret, I just wanted to know! It shouldn’t be. It shouldn’t be a secret. It’s just pictures.”

“Just pictures?” She echoes.

“Not even bad ones, look—“ He shoves the book toward her, finger tapping against the pictures, trying. “They look happy. What’s wrong with happy pictures? Why is this a secret?”

He’s out of breath. Fingers still tapping to avoid showing how his hands are trembling.

She doesn’t answer right away. Rather, she closes her eyes. Takes a deep breath before sitting down next to him, getting closer. Her hands don’t grab the book from him, don’t reach out to smack the back of his head, she doesn’t do anything more than take a seat next to the coffee table beside him.

“The book you are holding is called a photo album.” She finally says, slowly. Her eyes open and glance his way, observing the way his lips move to capture the word. “A photo album is like a picture book. You were, well, you were not wrong with that guess I suppose. The difference is that a photo album is meant to hold memories rather than a children’s story. The photo album you are holding is of my son.”

She holds her hands out, expectant. It’s when the fabric touches her palms that she continues in a faint voice. “I began this when he was born. Since then, it’s been my pride and joy, Jonathan. This photo album has meant the world to me. I’ve had many of the photos taken developed over the last few years and I do agree with you. I do think that perhaps I’ve been looking in it more and more as of late. In a way, I suppose that must have looked like I was sneaking about.” She laughs, wet and short. “Especially in front of my little collector.”

“Oh.” The nickname allows him to relax, lets him scoot closer as her arm falls heavy over his shoulders. “That’s your son?”

“That is.” She stops. Leans her cheek against his forehead. Starts again. “T-that was.”

“What about her?”

“That,” His grandmother whispered patiently, hand reaching for his to direct his gaze across the page. “That was my son’s wife. He had gotten married to her when he was about twenty-two years old. This picture right here is of the moment after they were married. I remember that I had just managed to catch her picking up their wedding cake to shove in his face. Always a jokester, she was. Didn’t get his reaction though, I’m afraid.”

Jon nods. They flip the page together and a new picture greets them.

“Who’s that?”

“Why, that’s you.”

He frowns. The picture is blurry and smudged. Stains litter the edges and he has to squint to see exactly where he is in the picture. The woman is there, laying on her side as her hair covers most of her face. Beside her is a bundle of blankets stacked high. Something, someone is in the blankets, but he doesn’t see himself.

“When you were born, you were already half the troublemaker your mother was.”

“Was not.”

“Was too!” His grandmother cackled out, fingers tugging the picture out from its pocket. She held it between two fingers, eyes alit, before allowing him to reach for it. “That day I remember clearly. You were known as quite the kicker. While your father found it worrying, your mother was rather in love with the idea of you being so eager to arrive. Oh, she used to say the strangest things — how the world wasn’t ready for you but you were ready for it.”

“However, you stopped kicking on that day. Hours had passed without any movement and your mother grew so worried. You were always kicking her and the sudden stop felt wrong. So naturally, she decided that a trip to the hospital was in order. Now, the weather was awful that day. Just terrible, I mean, rain and storms and hail. I watched your mother take one long look up at the storm brewing outside her apartment, another at her still stomach, and I saw her light up. I can still hear her voice going on and on about how perfect the weather was to give birth to her eager baby boy. My son and I naturally disagreed. Immensely, I mean, we tried everything to keep her in that damn apartment.”

“We ended up in the hospital of course.” She hummed. “Our warnings were ignored and after a few hours of waiting, you arrived. Right as the storm passed over the hospital, you came out screaming. The smallest, _loudest_ baby I had ever seen. Let me tell you, I have seen plenty of babies in my life. You were tiny! And for some cute, I suppose. Your mother would not let you out of her sight, no matter what the nurse said. We had to stack the hospital blankets high for her to curl around you. Goodness, if I could go back and take more pictures of that moment, I… I would.”

The photo felt light in his hands.

His chest felt heavy.

He flipped the page. Then then next. Then the next. Then the next.

There was nothing.

“Where’s the rest?” His eyes searched the page. “Where am I?”

“There are a few more photos, in storage, I believe.” His grandmother thought aloud. “I do have the one of you and your father on the night stand. I know I have that one, but—“

He flipped the next page, waiting.

Still, nothing.

“Why aren’t I here?”

“Oh, Jonathan.” Yellowed carpet and worn wood filled his vision. Fingers slipped through his hair, scratching and tugging at his loose curls, the photo album removed from sight. “It’s okay, you can cry.”

There was nothing else.

“Let it out, come on.”

“Five minutes?” He choked out and the fingers paused.

“…No.” The word was whispered between a kiss to the forehead and a sigh. “No, not tonight.”

“Not tonight.”

.

_(He’ll wake up that next morning — a knitted blanket thrown over his body, a pillow shoved underneath his head, and a stuffed animal squeezed between his arms. His grandmother will still be there, sitting on the very same seat with the radio on, humming to herself. The photo album will be laid across the coffee table. Scissors and tape and string and pen and photos of him, of her, of the world they share alone together; she’ll insert it all into the album book she cherishes most.)_

_(He’ll wake up and say nothing. Too afraid it’s a dream, too afraid he’ll wake up alone.)_

_(She’ll press another kiss to his forehead, ruffle his curls, and tell him to go back to sleep. Just a little longer, sweetheart, I’m almost done.)_

_(And when he wakes up again, the warmth is gone.)_

_(They will never mention_ **_that_ ** _night again.)_

.

Mr. Spider happens, soon after.

.

Jon doesn’t speak for weeks, but silence is always something his grandmother has appreciated.

.

The five-minute rule becomes routine as he grows older.

Behind locked doors, he has the freedom to react to anything and everything. There’s no time limit when he’s out of sight and alone.

And yet, the rule stays.

.

University arrives without question.

Jonathan Sims begins the first semester in style — by making a complete and utter fool of himself. There are no bullies here at the university to tease him or trip him up. Of course not, he does that to himself pretty well, thank you very much. The first day arrives with him managing to get assigned all the wrong courses, accidentally meet and greet the girl who just so happens to be the epicenter of a massive university rumor that quite possibly involves dead students and crossed police tape, and at the end of the day he gets a phone call saying that there’s been an accident.

The five-minute rule, it seems, will continue to thrive.

.

In a house too big for two and now suffocating for one, his grandmother falls.

The story that Jon is told via phone call is easy to follow. She was doing the dishes, managed to spill some water on the ground, went to grab a rag to clean the mess, and slipped. There’s no injury except for a sore hip and some bruises, and she bats away his help with every phone call he attempts. The same story is grunted over the phone numerous times and she hangs up on him before he can say goodbye. She’s fine, he tells himself in one of the University’s bathroom stalls, just batty and rude and impolite to anyone who ever tries to help her. She’s fine.

By the end of his first semester, he’s checked her into hospice.

The doctors have tacked no disease onto her clipboard to mark her downfall. It’s a combination of old age and stress, one patient care tech admits to him in passing, it happens to everybody at this age. Nothing you can do but sit and wait.

“So,” Jon begins as he sits at the end of her bed. He doesn’t look up at her, hasn’t since he’s signed the papers, and she doesn’t greet him. Instead, he picks at the worn blanket laying at her feet and makes a mental note to get her a better one. “Old age and stress, huh?”

The joke falls flat and is an incredibly wrong thing to say to an armed woman.

“Oh, don’t you dare start, Jonathan.” He barely dodges the tape dispense aimed with appalling accuracy towards him as she fixes him a glare. “I damn well raised you, mister. Any more sass and I’ll lay you under myself.”

He scoffs - unlikely.

.

And she doesn’t.

.

Lay him under, that is.

.

Midway into his second year of University, Jonathan Sims gets a call.

He’s in the middle of another boring lecture, his attention mostly drawn towards Georgie as he attempts to dodge another crumpled piece of paper tossed his way, when one of the admission’s staff comes in with his name on her lips. The world does not stop in that moment. The lecture hall, however, does. It’s remarkable how every single person can read a room, read a voice, read the way Jon stands up too fast — knocking his chair back, shoveling his textbooks into his bag, avoiding the hundreds of eyes turned against him in a moment of vulnerability.

His grandmother dies in her sleep.

She dies alone yet loved in a room filled to the brim with photos of her grandson and a framed picture of his mother and father by her bed. She dies under clean silk sheets and a vanilla candle lit by request. His last words to her are unremarkable — _Do you honestly need another roll of tape? You must be out of pictures by now! Who’s even taking them? Is it Georgie? Are you bribing her_ — and her’s are similar in their lack of importance — _If I went to every damn book store on this planet for you, the least you can do is learn to pick up a roll of tape before your next visit! Now hurry up and leave me alone, damn it. I need to think of where this one should go_ — but he thinks about them, in that moment.

He thinks about a lot as the staff members leads him out.

About the way his grandmother smiled more in her later years. The way her eyes would cloud over as she called him by his father’s name, asking about his mother, wondering when the baby would come. He thinks about all the love she brought forth at death’s door and how much he hated her for not having the courage to give it earlier. He thinks about how much he loved her and how little they said those three words.

He thinks about how heavy a casket is when it holds the last of your family.

He thinks about being alone in a world where family is supposed to mean something to everyone else except for the weird boy in the big, lonely house filled with pictures of people he never knew to keep him warm.

Five minutes becomes a day, then two, then weeks.

Some people, after all, are worth more than five _fucking_ minutes.

.

His professors lessen the workload forced upon him. They send him emails that tell him to avoid classes and to rest instead. The excuse is always the same; his grades can take a hit but his mental health cannot. The emails do not stop him from showing up, do not stop him from sitting alone in the back with his notebook and pen, they do nothing to him but fill up his inbox with pointless rambles from people who will never understand him when he says — it’s fine. He doesn’t need the rest. The pity, the patience, he does not need any of it.

That’s not what he needs.

One professor, a Dr. Lynnette, understands this.

When Jon walks into the lecture hall with his head low, having ignored all the emails sent his way, having avoided Georgie’s worried stares, the professor does not miss a step in speaking. He does not spare a second to look at the poor boy with no family to call his own. Dr. Lynnette goes on to speak about the what-ifs of every decision and how one must live with the choices made. “Life is cruel,” The professor ends the lecture with a sigh. “Be crueler to it. Leave life with no other choice but to listen to you.”

As people begin to stand and leave, only then does the professor approach Jon with a scowl.

“You are not supposed to be here, Jonathan. The emails sent were specifically clear on that matter.” Dr. Lynnette said through the lid of his coffee cup. The stare Jon receives pierces through him without anymore judgement than an ant gets from a boot. “Though I suppose I can make use of you yet. Come along.”

Jon follows, mutely. Step after step, listening to the obnoxious slurping of coffee.

“Amanda, you do know Amanda, yes?” Dr. Lynnette begins with an eye roll. “Christ, everyone knows Amanda. Well, I tasked her with some basic organization skills as a means of getting extra credit for that god-awful essay she turned in the other day. I mean, it was absolutely ridiculously. Just terrible, I threw it out the instant I finished skimming through it.”

The silence was notable.

“Unprofessional, I know, sue me.” A wave of his hand, a click of his tongue, and he paused. “I should have known that the job was a bit too much for her. If she cannot tell the difference between the moral stances of Plato and Aristotle in regards to how senses can affect a person’s state of being, then what the hell was I thinking in letting her anywhere near my filing room? A mistake on my part, honestly.”

Jon flinched as keys where thrown his way, barely caught in his hands as he cupped them close to his chest.

“Enough niceties.” The professor began, low. “If you are this insistent on showing up to my lectures like a lost dog, then at least allow me to make you a useful, lost dog. The filing office down the hall needs to be organized. There’s no technology, only paper files and dates. I want my files ordered by date and if there are multiple under the same date, then have them alphabetized. Is that something you can do?”

He nods.

Swallows up the words bubbling in his throat.

Dr. Lynnette groans, pinches his nose, takes a minute. “Usefulness is defined by our ability to make due, Jonathan.”

“If you cannot be useful, go home and come back when you are able to. Life gives us all the short stick, eventually. We do not all share the pleasure of letting our world stop because it becomes a bit harder to carry it.”

“Now go.”

He does.

The office is organized in under three hours from top to bottom.

Dr. Lynnette slaps a hand on his shoulder and tells him to come back tomorrow for another job.

The work is dull, pointless, and Jon becomes obsessed with it.

It’s exactly what he needs.

.

He still cannot bring himself to speak.

.

A month passes, then two.

.

Georgie Baker hears Jonathan Sims speak three months later.

They’re together, in more ways than one. Georgie is the first to introduce Jon to her family, to her friend group, to everything she is learning how to hold dear again. She’s the girl who began her second year of University as the dead girl walking, carrying the weight of knowing what death truly is in the end. She carries the weight of Alex who vanished between her fingertips, the weight of relearning how to express emotions towards others, and the staggering weight of a schedule that isn’t quite right. She meets Jonathan Sims when she runs into him on the way to her first morning lecture of the semester. Meets him again when he bumps into her in the academics office, both of them hoping to have their schedules fixed for the better. The third time is, without a doubt, the better of their many first impressions.

Georgie Baker meets Jonathan Sims when he offers to tutor her in advanced statistics.

The offer is sweet, really, it is. The two share similarities in their courses and she’s struggling when faced with long nights and longer nightmares that seep into her day. The issue with losing the ability to feel fear isn’t the concern of a lack of humanity, as most people would assume. It’s the fact of knowing something is wrong, knowing you’re in danger or someone else is, and lacking the motivation to do anything about it. Her grades slip, her attention fails her, and Jonathan Sims offers a solution.

How tutoring sessions led to quiet confessions which led to a near-silent relationship, well, that’s more on her than him.

They are a few weeks into their relationship when Georgie is introduced to the frail woman Jonathan tenderly calls a pain in his ass. A pain in his ass who prefers to be called his grandmother — his sweet, loving grandmother who graciously _took_ his smart ass in when no one else would volunteer. The entire visit is full of comments thrown by both parties, an envelope of photos left on her night stand, and a hug and whisper to Georgie from the woman who begs her to try and understand smart ass who’s failing to sneak out of the room. Georgie laughs and smiles, but she doesn’t quite get the comment. Not at first, but understanding has always come in waves.

The largest wave being when the same woman passes away and Jonathan Sims goes silent.

It is not the silence of a morgue or the silence that death brings inevitably. It’s the quietness in the morning when a kiss is pressed to her temple but there’s no sound to it. No true feeling except for a ghost of a whisper for her to have a great day. He still tutors her, writes down example after examples, and their relationship remains strong. Georgie does not pry, she observes. Offers her hand when he needs it and learns how to spot out the moments he needs her most.

Four mouths, fifteen days, three hours, twenty-two minutes, and one second passes her by before she hears Jon speak again. The words are not raspy from disuse but they lack the scowl that follows each comment made by the man. His first words are soft-spoken between a kiss to her cheek as she makes some tea.

“I’m sorry,” Jon says so softly. “I needed more than five minutes. I couldn’t, I just _couldn’t_.”

She freezes at the mention of that stupid rule, that damn rule, the one rule she wishes she could scrub out of his mind.

“I’m sorry, Georgie.”

She thaws, touches his face, and smiles through her tears.

“You have nothing to apologize for.” She says back with a kiss. “Absolutely nothing.”

.

“I love you.”

Gentle kisses, hands brought together, hot tea.

“Okay.”

Booming laughter, head thrown back in pure amazement, bright smiles.

“All I get is an okay? _Jon_.”

New apartment, photo albums, a warm bundle of furs and meows.

“ _Georgie_.”

University ending. Job applications. Fingertips across the skin, dancing.

“Do I have to threaten you? I will. I will absolutely threaten you, here and now.”

A podcast, ghosts in the attic, cool stares from across the room.

“You cannot be serious.”

Typed papers, a chance encounter, a chilling proposition.

“Serious as ghost — Hey! Don’t you dare laugh at me, _mister-_ “

The Magnus Archives, researching the paranormal, cold decisions.

“Fine, fine. I love you, Georgie Baker, and all your make believe _ghosts_ -“

A goodbye.

“Oh, shut up and kiss me, Jon.”

.

The fallout to any relationship hurts.

Especially when both parties still love each other through and through.

Jon does not measure his reaction in minutes.

You cannot, after all, measure a lifetime of regret in the span of five minutes.

.

The Magnus Archives is loud.

Loud, messy, and filled with people who lie about the damnedest of things. For example, for someone who apparently studied the dead classical language of Latin yet failed to understand the word which translated quite literally into hello, well, there’s a special kind of hatred for someone like that. Jon finds himself in the smallest of offices, crammed between his desk and a filing cabinet, and paired with some of the most peculiar researchers he’s ever known.

The Magnus Archives is loud and for some reason, it feels like home.

.

Sasha James, Tim Stoker, and Martin Blackwood.

Jon learns their names, their habits, and tries his best to be polite.

He fails most times but he doesn’t expect much.

.

The Head Archivist, an elderly woman named Gertrude Robinson, goes missing while Jon is running errands one day.

A few months later, Jon becomes the new Head Archivist.

He has no credentials that give him an advantage, no knowledge of what being an Archivist means, and he has to take his fellow researchers up with him.

So yes, he asks for a five-minute break and lights a cigarette.

It’s stomped out after ten.

.

The statements are all false.

_(That’s a lie he tells himself as he grabs another tape recorder. Technology, it seems, offers him hints on which statements to pursue and which to leave behind.)_

The statement givers are all delusional.

_(He sees fragments of himself in all of them. In the way they fidget under his gaze, how they try to reason their own experiences with him, the silence they provide after.)_

The Magnus Archives is home to nothing more than overactive imaginations.

_(He hides his trembling hands under his desk. Scowls and rolls his eyes to avoid making eye contact. He does not let his fear seep through.)_

If he has to take a few more smoke breaks here and there, it’s due to stress.

_(Five minutes is no longer enough to breathe.)_

The statements are all false.

.

Jane Prentiss is real.

_(Martin’s panicked voice, a statement given through tears, the sensation of worms inching over skin.)_

Jane Prentiss is real.

_(Walls collapsing, worms swarming, skin broken and burrowed into.)_

Jane Prentiss is real.

_(Screaming, losing consciousness, is this how he dies?)_

Jane Prentiss is real.

_(He does not want to die.)_

Jane Prentiss is real and then she is not.

_(He doesn’t die, not then.)_

Gertrude Robinson, the previous Head Archivist, is assumed dead and then proven.

_(No, not then.)_

Jonathan Sims, the new Head Archivist, is alive and alone with a murderer.

_(But soon.)_

He’ll make five minutes feel like an eternity if it means he’ll live.

_(Soon, he will die.)_

So Jon shoves his emotions to the side and allows paranoia to take control.

Because Jane Prentiss was real.

Who knows what else is.

_(And he will rise.)_

.

Sasha is dead, replaced, gone.

_(Apologies fall from his lips. Tears trickle down his chin. How was he so blind?)_

Elias is a murderer who sings him praises.

_(My Archivist, you need these statements, are you really human?)_

Tim hates him, blames him, wants him to rot like Jane Prentiss had.

_(Hey boss, how could you, you murderer!)_

Melanie and Basira and Daisy add to the list of concerns.

_(A bastard, a monster, trapped all because of you.)_

Martin tries.

_(Tea, quiet conversations, apologies unsaid.)_

Georgie offers comfort.

_(Hiding from the police, the Admiral, it’s okay Jon, please listen.)_

Jonathan Sims deserves all of it.

.

Scars cover his body.

Touch becomes synonymous with pain, with fear, with hatred.

He does not have time to breathe, there’s a ritual to stop.

.

There is a second before the explosion, a second before the compulsion leaves his mouth, a second before Jon realizes the cost of saving the world.

There is a second and then there is hell.

There is a second and then there is a choice.

There is a second and then, Jon takes a breath.

Then, there is the aftermath.

.

Hospital lights flood his vision.

_(Sasha is gone.)_

Pain fills his chest.

_(Tim is gone.)_

He tries to breathe.

_(Georgie is walking away.)_

He tries to speak.

_(Basira distrusts him.)_

He tries to apologize.

_(Melanie wants him dead.)_

He tries to reason.

_(Daisy is gone, buried.)_

He tries, he tries, he tries.

_(Martin is breathing, alive, and he too leaves anyway.)_

Five minutes isn’t much anymore.

.

Melanie is infested with the slaughter’s malice — he removes the bullet.

Martin is trapped in a web of his own making — he says his piece and turns away.

Daisy is buried and alone and terrified — he allows the thing called Jared to take two of his ribs for the price of one anchor.

Why?

.

He’s clinging to humanity, he thinks.

.

“Five minutes,” He screams himself hoarse one night.

The mirror is cracked. His hands are shaking, glass shards sprinkled between the sink and counter. Blood trickles down invisible wounds but the pain is nonexistent.

The mirror is cracked. He squeezes his eyes shut. It doesn’t change the reflection in the mirror. It doesn’t change anything.

“Five minutes,” He begs. “Please, at least give me that.”

.

It was an accidental meeting.

Eyes catching at the coffee shop Sasha (or was it the other?) used to visit.

It was an accident.

It had to have been an accident.

His hand covers his mouth, eyes watering, and body shuddering under the new addition in his dreams. His veins are filled with injected bliss but his mind weighs him down heavy as he hides in the alleyway. The girl’s wide, scared eyes are forever engrained in his mind. Her statement was one he could feel suffocating him from all sides, forcing him towards her as an exit from his thoughts, his fears, his limitations. He could feel the vibration of rubble falling over his shoulders as she spoke. Could feel the hand wrapping around his own ankle, tempting him further. In that moment, he was the Archivist and she was another victim laid bare under the eye’s watchful gaze.

“Fuck.”

He’s the Archivist and he craves more.

“Fuck, no, please.”

He’s the Archivist but he is also Jonathan Sims; the monster clinging desperately to another reminder of the humanity he once had. That’s why he introduced himself as an extension of the Magnus Archives. It’s a means of reaching out for help, he knows that. If she goes to the institute to give her own statement about him, someone else will find out. They’ll know and they’ll stop him.

They’ll stop him, they have to.

“Please.”

For he can no longer stop himself.

.

Basira tells him the plan. Another ritual to stop. A time for the Archivist to shine.

Jon, the Archivist, hesitantly agrees.

It’s not enough.

.

Full power, he muses on their way to the shipping yard.

His gaze narrows in on a docked ship filled with more crew members than tourists.

Gingerly, he guides them that way.

.

Basira learns quick.

.

It’s been five minutes.

Jonathan Sims, the Archivist, is aware of this. He can sense the vibration of each second wasted just ticking behind his eyes. There’s an aggravating pain in wasted time, in a lack of ability, that spikes and drags itself across his spine. Basira is gone — jacket thrown over his shivering shoulders, face purposefully forced blank, eyes bright with poorly hidden terror — and Jon sits alone. The statement given rests in his head, settles in between so many others like it, and he feels full and complete and oh so aware.

There’s detachment, he finds, as he sits.

What he did there, what he allowed himself to do, was morally wrong. It was helpful and useful and just what Basira nudged him towards, but it was so very wrong. The way the man looked at him with such a confused and fearful expression, the way his lips moved faster than his thoughts, how his personality sunk between wave after wave of uncomfortable memory dragged up from whatever corner of his mind he tried to bury it in — it was blissful to uncover.

_(A hand at the back of his neck, reaching, twisting, pleading for him to stop.)_

It was like finding the final piece of the puzzle. Of course, there were more puzzles all around him and the feeling is too addicting to leave undesired but he had stopped himself. Had taken what he needed and allowed the man the peace of some well-deserved rest. Whether the man would ever sleep again without knowing the fear of darkness surrounding him, waves overtaking his sense of balance, blood and silence greeting him in place of another he favored — well, a life for the world makes sense.

_(Terror streaked across her face, limelight washing out her wrinkles, eyes wide and observing.)_

No, that was wrong.

A life for the world makes sense. That’s what Gertrude believed and if Basira truly wanted to praise that woman for her sickening beliefs, then fine. If Basira admired the horrific detachment, the strong sense of duty, the inability to love fully enough to sacrifice herself over another, then fine. If Basira wanted to praise that woman for what she did to all those innocent people, then fine.

He would show her then.

He would show her that same detachment of the lives around them. He would show her how little the people around him meant in the grand scheme of stopping rituals. He would put Basira front and center to all the times he ruined and hurt innocent lives for something as small as a lead or a possible chance to stop a ritual. He would show Basira what full power meant to an Archivist with so few anchors left to block the door. If she wanted to see the drowning man, he would let the water run.

_(A step taken back unconsciously, hands raised from their sides, shoulders tense.)_

He wouldn’t hurt her, though.

He disagreed with Gertrude in that retrospect.

Yes, a life for the world makes sense. A single life is a candle in the wind in comparison to billions of lives. The difference between himself and Gertrude however was that the Archivist was going to protect two worlds — the world and his world. His world which consists of those who either are dead, gone, missing, or simply have abandoned him. His world which consists of anchors to his humanity. His world which consists of the Magnus Archives and all he will accomplish there.

_(A Knowing look.)_

“Five minutes, Jonathan.” The Archivist says. He brings the words into existent with a hand pressed against his eyes, sea-water dancing across his tongue, and his heart lost to the sea below him. “Five minutes.”

It ends and he smiles.

He has work to do.

**Author's Note:**

> If anyone else grew up on the five-minute rule when it came to emotions, I feel you.


End file.
